Classic TMI

Every day this week I've opened my computer, sat down and willed myself to write something. Every. Day. And six hours later, stymied, frustrated and dejected, I've closed my laptop and walked away. It's not that I have writer's block, or don't have anything to say, it's just that I don't know how to write what I want to say with out sounding like that insane screechy person on the subway platform prattling on and on about the end of days a'coming and hoping no one pushes her onto the tracks.

So I've decided to take my time and parse my words, for once, thinking before I speak, or rather, pressing 'publish.' I'm trying to show a depth in growth here people, but it's no fun.

In-law/sibling relationships are hard, hurty and complicated and life would just be easier if I didn't mind picking up a flamethrower and burning a few bridges to the ground. I could totally chant, "Burn baby burn!" as I wielded a big old blowtorch.

Life would be so much more fun if I was a pyromaniac with little regard to other people's feelings or my own happiness.

Sigh.

So as I have struggled to figure out how I feel, why it matters and if it's even worth sharing, (because really, who hasn't had difficulty with a relative or an in-law or even just another human being before in their lives? It's not like my particular family dynamics are particularly interesting or unique and I'd likely just be another person prattling 'woe is me' when you all have real life problems and then you'd all want to either smother me with a dirty pillow or hit me upside the head with a broken laptop.) I've taken to wandering around my yard, pulling the occasional weed, planting the odd flower and cursing at the wildlife.

Remember this fine fella from earlier this spring? He/she/Pat (it's not like I'm going to ask him/her/Pat to hold still so I can inspect what's between it's legs) has taken to standing in my driveway, eating the tops off of all my fruit trees off and pooping wherever I have to walk. Apparently Pat the Moose is neither scared of the pack of dogs I keep, or the air horn I blow when ever he gets too close to my favourite cherry tree.

Pat just keeps coming back.

I found Pat bathing in my pond yesterday. Pat wasn't shy at all. Of course, I kept a healthy distance between Pat and myself because as much as I call myself a redneck and for as long as I've lived out in the country, I am a born city slicker who squeals like the girl I am when ever I comes face to face with an animal taller than I am.

I gave Pat my permission to stay in my pond because if he/she stays in the back half of my property then I know he/she won't be eating any more of my tree tops, will stay out of my garden and I won't have to scrape moose poop off of Jumby's wheelchair tires.

Also, I can hear my husband screeching at me that it's a girl moose but for all I know Pat could just be a slow developer. Like I was. Maybe his balls haven't dropped and his horns are slow. DO I LOOK LIKE A FREAKING ZOOLOGIST BOO? STOP MOCKING ME.

Of course Pat the Moose is much friendlier than the bitchy beaver I happened upon last week. I only had my iPhone with me and when I tried to get closer to show you all the true majesty of our royal beaver, the little witch smacked her tail at me, bared her teeth and then chased me a few meters.

Insert stuffed beaver joke here.

There was no chance of me getting any tail with that beaver, as I was too busy half laughing, half squealing and full out running as fast as my little legs would take me away from the beastie. I wanted to turn right around and point out just who owned what but then I remembered what a beaver did to my dad's dog so I just kept on running.

I'm a pansy like that.

What does it say that a girl can't even walk around her yard with out being chased by an angry beaver? Don't answer that. It was rhetorical.

You'd think with all the recent brushes with death I've had via my wild life encounters, I'd have finally figured out how I want to write what I need to say. You'd have thought wrong. Because when I am not taking my own life into my hands by walking around the yard, I've been ogling the construction men my husband hired to fill my hole.

Cue the bad 70's porn music. Bow chicka bow wow. Except the only dirty thing going on over here is how it rained nonstop the moment my husband ripped out our driveway. My yard is one big slip and slide involving sweaty, muddy men playing with Lego styrofoam blocks and feeding me beer.

Turns out this construction gig isn't half bad.

JUST KIDDING.

There was only one beer. Most of the time the manly men refuse to talk to me and instead they prefer to walk around the yard holding their cell phones up trying to find one bar of reception so they can call my husband and therefore avoid walking up the deck, knocking on the door and being forced to talk to me.

When they do have to talk to me, they stare at my feet and pretend I'm not drooling on them. They're very professional like that.

I can totally hear my husband yelling at me to STOP TALKING. I bet he's really glad Xplornet finally fixed my internet.

For those of you who are interested in my husband's man cave, well, we've gone from having a driveway, to having a pit to hell, to having footings, to now having first floor walls, a septic system, plumbing, electrical and absolutely zero driveway. Next up, I hear my sidewalk and my lawn are on the list to be ripped out.

Sob.

My husband, being the man he is, is bouncing around with excitement and barely takes any notice of how ugly everything is right now. He just keeps telling me 'it has to get ugly before it can get pretty, Tanis,' and I keep wanting to hit him over the head with a shovel.

It turns out that this entire building project, the sheer enormity of it, the cost, the time factor and the myriad of a million loose threads all needing to be tied together in one giant bow are taking their toll on me. My husband sees a shiny bright future filled with ease and double garage doors and I see that spot where Bug used to sit in a plastic pool erased, filled now with concrete. That sidewalk he wants to rip out? Bug walked those blocks. With every little change necessary to make room for my husband's dream it seems like it's erasing the memories of my past, scattering them in the wind like dandelion seeds and I'm struggling over it.

In the meantime, I'll keep wandering about, begging Nature to be kind to me, while hoping the next construction crew doesn't drink cheap beer and I'll wait for the words to come.

At over 1200 words today, I don't think I'll have to wait much longer.

A mock-up of what the man-cave should end up looking like. Picture girly doors though. Because I like girly. And my husband didn't check the order. Heh.

I Want a Mulligan

It's been one of those days. You know the ones. They typically start with you moaning first thing in the morning about something or other and end with you begging for mercy and a mulligan by nightfall.

My dad is still in the hospital. (He's partially bionic now and grumpier than ever but he'll likely outlive us all.) My pit to Hell mocks me every time I look out the window, and my daughter woke up infected with what is surely bound to be the virus that starts the zombie out break.

Best of all, she keeps breathing on me.

I have to keep reminding myself that while it's totally legal and acceptable to beat actual zombies when they come near you, my daughter hasn't quite made the entire transition to soul sucking brain muncher. At this point in the game she's merely a snot monster who is intent on breathing her sick germs all over me and that I should just stick with spraying her down with Lysol every time she breaks the three foot invisible perimeter I've installed around myself.

Which reminds me, I'm running out of Lysol, tissue paper and while we are at it, I'm currently looking for someone who can back fill my pit to Hell. I have no idea which aisle I would find that in my local grocery store.

So here I am, feeling a little paranoid about getting sick, a little anxious about my husband's stupid garage project and more than a bit worried about my father and I'm wondering if maybe I need one of those little stress balls to squeeze so that the top of my head doesn't pop off anytime soon when the phone rings so loudly I almost crap my pants.

(Side note: I bought new phones last week and still haven't bothered to figure out how to turn the ringer down. Frac promised to help me but apparently he's either hard of hearing or sadistic because the ringer is still set at DEAFENING LOUD.)

It was the school. The last time the school called was when someone was bleeding. Thanks to my child.

As it turns out, someone was bleeding. Only this time it was my child. Specifically, the Jumbster.

There was an accident. It involved my kid in his wheelchair, sloped ground and a pothole.

Jumby stopped himself. With his face. After the wheelchair toppled.

He'll live. Kids are meant to be bumped and bruised, even kids who have wheels instead of working legs and my Jumbster is one tough little nut.

I'm gonna need a bigger stress ball.

 

 

For the Love of a Good Book

Disclaimer: I'm working with a social eReader program, Copia, which is launching this weekend. As part of the launch they've asked me to mention Copia is having a Mother's Day sale with 50% off all eBooks so you should go out and grab some. What's better than inexpensive books and a great social eReader?  It's almost like the fine people of Copia have spoken with my husband. Seriously.

*****

My very first mother's day spent as an actual mother happened 24 hours after my husband and I walked down the aisle. I was 14? 15? weeks pregnant with my son, trying to wrangle an eight month old who had the worst diaper rash I had ever seen and was completely exhausted from all of the wedding excitement from the day before.

It hadn't even occurred to me that the day after our wedding was Mother's day and luckily my mother was very understanding when I handed her a bouquet of hastily purchased, half wilted gas station roses. She was just thrilled to have one less child to worry about. The fact I was now someone else's problem was the best mother's day gift I could ever give her.

I hadn't really expected anything myself, for my inaugural mother's day as somebody's mom, after all, my new husband had just spent more than he could afford to throw me a party and our daughter, little genius as she was, wasn't cognizant of much other than her desire to sleep, fill her diaper and be fed.

But there on the dresser was a small package, wrapped clumsily in tissue paper, with more tape than warranted on the edges and a card addressed to 'Mom.'

Since I was the only Mom in the room, I figured it was for me and so with my daughter squirming in my arms, I ripped off the tissue and discovered it was a book.

Alice In Wonderland. Inscribed on the first page my husband had written "I can't wait to watch you take our daughter to Wonderland."

My husband knew how important reading was to me and how much I wanted to instill that love in my children. There is nothing quite like spending an afternoon, snuggled on the family couch, each of us quietly lost in our imaginations as we plow through our latest selections.

Every Mother's day that has followed, there has been a book clumsily wrapped in tissue paper, with more tape than warranted on the edges and a card addressed to 'Mom' waiting for me to open. It's the greatest mother's day present I could ever ask for.

Because sharing my love of reading, of books, of stories with my children and watching their imaginations come alive along the way is the best way I could ever spend Mother's day with my family. I'm so glad my husband knew that right from the very start.